


Unexpected Pairings

by One_Small_Writer



Category: Tangled (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Getting to Know Each Other, Human Pascal and Max, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lab Partners, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Science Experiments, Slow Burn, Teen Years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26225089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/One_Small_Writer/pseuds/One_Small_Writer
Summary: Rapunzel and Eugene, who around school is known as Flynn, are assigned lab partners for the year.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

Rapunzel walked up the stairs of the school, holding the straps of her backpack tightly as she weaved her way through the sea of people. It was the first day of school, and therefore, absolute chaos.

She thanked God she was no longer one of the scared freshmen who stood around in the front of the school, unsure of what to do or where to go. She was a sophomore now. It wasn’t impressive or that exciting in the scheme of things, but at least she knew where to go and where everything was.

She fast-tracked it to the office to get her information for the year, schedule, locker assignment, and a long list of extracurriculars she could take, not stopping her speed walk until she got them and found a wall to press herself against so she could read them safely. She needed to find her friends so they could get a spot together in the infamously borning first day of school assembly.

Studying her documents, she took out her phone with one hand to text their group chat.

_ Rapunzel to The Hair Gang: Are you guys here yet?? _

_ Max to The Hair Gang: Yep, at new locker. No. 185 _

_ Rapunzel to The Hair Gang: Great, mine’s 76. Pascal?? _

_ Pascal to The Hair Gang: On the bus, not all of us live within walking distance to the school. Where do we meet? _

_ Max to The Hair Gang: Meet at Punzie’s locker, it’s closest to the gym. _

_ Rapunzel to The Hair Gang: Go to the office and your locker first, obviously. _

_ Max to The Hair Gang: Obviously  _

Pascal sent a thumbs-up emoji back, and Rapunzel smiled to herself, pocketing her phone so she could start across the school to her locker. Pascal and Max had been her best friends since they were assigned to a table together in 1st grade. It’s always been the three of them and no one else, they’d stuck together through it all.

Rapunzel found her locker, putting in the code the paper told her to, and eventually after three tries, she got it open, just as Max appeared beside her.

“Hey Max, how’s it going?” She asked, swinging her backpack around to start shoving its contents into her new locker.

“Have I ever mentioned to you how much I hate everything about the first day of school?” He sighed, resting his head against the cold metal of the locker next to hers.

“Only every year since we met, yes,” They both laughed until Max’s eyes narrowed towards the sleeve of her T-shirt. 

“What is that?” He spat, glaring at her bicep as he turned around to get a better look. Rapunzel followed his gaze and found scratch marks peaking out of her sleeve. Her mouth dropped open, and she tugged down her sleeve as far as she could. She thought this top would cover them but it hadn’t even taken ten minutes for someone to notice.

“It’s nothing,” She said quickly, avoiding eye contact.

“It doesn’t look like nothing Rapunzel,” He protested.

“Look, I promise it’s nothing major. There was no serious altercation or anything, she just grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away because I was in front of the cabinet. She’s just not taking Cass’s leaving very well, that’s all. It’s fine,”

“You and I both know this was happening way before Cassandra left for college…”

“Don’t,” She cut in, “It’s the first day of school, I don’t want to talk about this now,” Max bit his lip and nodded curtly. An awkward silence fell between them, the only sounds being Rapunzel shoving her things into her locker until Pascal appeared next to them.

“Hi, guys!” He said, waving and as excited as ever.

“Hi Pascal, love the hair!” Rapunzel exclaimed, thankful the tension seemed to have dropped.

“Thanks,” He said, running his hand through the green fluffy part at the front of his head. Ever since middle school Pascal had been known to have a different color in the front of his hair every week, it was basically one of his personality traits.

He, Max, and Rapunzel have often been nicknamed ‘The Hair Gang’ by their classmates, hence the group chat name. Rapunzel had her long golden hair, Pascal had his colorful fluffy hair and Max has his Draco Malfoy blonde hair that was long enough for him to rarely take it out of a man bun.

The caught up with each other, even though there wasn’t much for them to talk about (They spent all summer together after all), and luckily for her, everyone ignored Rapunzel’s arm, until the warning bell went, signaling three minutes until the start of assembly.

“Come on, let’s get this over with,” Max grumbled. The other two nodded and started walking behind him, dragging their feet the whole way.

On the opposite side of the school, Eugene (Who at school was known as Flynn) stood in the middle of the football field with two of his friends/teammates, Pete and Seth Stabbington, staring out dreamily at the bleachers. In a few shorts weeks, they’d be back under the lights, running, throwing, and tackling, and he couldn’t wait.

“Oh how I’ve missed this place,” He announced. 

“What? School?” Seth sneered.

“Of course not, the field, idiot. Football!” The others agreed, and silence fell back upon them.

Eugene loved football, it was his passion. He loved the roughness of it, he loved the feeling of the bright lights baring out on him and he especially loved the feeling of getting the winning point from a kick that sent the ball soaring through the sky majestically. He loved everything about it.

“So Flynn,” Pete said, interrupting his train of thought, “I hear you have Ms. Leigh for science this year.”

“Uhh, yeah, I think so. Why? Is she strict?” He asked absentmindedly. 

“I had her last year. She’s not super strict, well to me she was, but not stricter than anyone else it..”

“Have you ever considered that the reason teachers are so strict to you is that they don’t like you?” Seth interjected. Pete retaliated with a smack upside the head.

“Uhh, guys? No one’s told me why having Ms. Leigh as a teacher is a bad thing yet,” Eugene said.

“Right. Just be warned that she makes it her personal goal to partner you up with some random you don’t know. Even if you ask to switch, she’ll never let you. Last year I was partnered with someone I still don’t know the name of. Be prepared to be stuck with some weirdo for the entire year,” He warned.

Eugene nodded again. He wouldn’t mind being partnered with someone he didn’t know, he wasn’t opposed to making new friends. Anyone would be better than the meatheads he was friends with now. Sure, he liked them as people (Most of the time), but they were idiots and often troublemakers. 

If they weren’t his teammates and if he didn’t have a reputation to uphold (And if he wasn’t downright terrified of some of them), he probably would’ve dropped them for some nicer, smarter friends who were less likely to land him in detention or suspended, by now.

Maybe this random partner thing could work out in his favor, and maybe if he was extra lucky, maybe his life could turn out like all those cheesy rom-com where his partner is some super pretty girl and they’ll fall in love over experiments and projects and then live happily ever after.

The warning bell rang and echoed through the empty field, signaling 3 minutes until the dreaded first day of school assembly. All three boys groaned.

“Come on, let’s get this over with,” Pete grumbled. The other two nodded and started walking, dragging their feet the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So this is new, I've never written for the Tangled fandom before, but I thought up this idea and thought it'd fit.  
> Anyway, I don't know much about any of the characters from the series because I haven't been able to watch it yet, so this is more based on the movie than that. I did some research on the series characters and I've tried to add them in based on how I interrupted the information I found, but they will all be background/only mentioned characters for that reason. If I get something wrong please tell me!


	2. Chapter 2

The bell rang and the door to the science classroom swung open, revealing Ms. Liegh in all her glory. She was tall and wide with long ginger hair in unwieldy curls.

She stood proud in the doorway with her hand resting on the doorframe, blocking the class from entering. “Welcome,” She smiled at them all, lined neatly against the wall, “It’s going to be a fun year with all you cretins. Come in.” She stood away from the doorway and gestured to the classroom before walking over and standing behind her desk.

Rapunzel ducked between her classmates, squeezing herself through them to get to the front as she made a beeline for the middle row table in the corner. Luckily for her, science this year was in the same room she had science in the year prior, so she already knew exactly where she wanted to sit.

Everyone else filtered into the classroom, most people she knew but also didn’t at the same time and some she didn’t know at all, but the seat next to her was left empty (The thing about the science rooms was that all the tables were doubles, due to the style of work the class involved).

Rapunzel didn’t mind, she wasn’t friends with anyone anyway, though it was just her luck that she was in a class that involved exclusively group work with no one she spoke to. 

The last person walked in and sat down at the back, also alone, and Ms. Leigh clapped loudly to draw everyone’s attention to the front of the room.

“Alright, let’s get this thing started. I’m Ms. Leigh and I should know most of you already, I co-coach the cheerleaders and a few of the other girl's sports teams, and I help out with a lot of other clubs too. I’d love to see you all in at least one club from the list you were given this morning. Anyway, that’s not the point, what I’m saying is that you’ll see me around.” She turned to write her name across the board in big letters.

Rapunzel liked Ms. Leigh. She coached the tennis team, something Rapunzel was a part of, and occasionally helped out with jazz band, another thing she was a part of, so she’d had frequent run-ins with her in the past. She was always nice, and Rapunzel liked the colorful clothes she always wore.

“So, science. Welcome. This year the board has decided to do things a little differently when it comes to class structure. We’ll spend the first half of the year studying the four sciences we’ve always studied, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and Earth Science, in great detail. Then, instead of just tests and graded assessment pieces, we’re doing a science exhibition instead. You and your lab partner will choose a long term experiment that will start around the 6-month mark, so March. You will experiment and form a full report based on the results,”

“It’ll take up a lot of time, and because of this a lot of it will be completed as homework. You and your partner will need to make arrangements accordingly. All the required coursework will still be completed. Any questions?” She wrote the key points on the board and Rapunzel took out her planner.

She was extremely excited, she loved science and the thought of a long term experiment was very exciting to her. She just hoped whoever her partner shared her enthusiasm.

“I have a question,” The boy at the back piped up, raising his hand, “Is it sort of like the science fairs from middle school?”

“Pretty much. It’ll be set up like that, but you’ll be held to a high school level. No vinegar and baking soda volcanoes, no ‘Do Plants Grow To Music’, none of that. All your experiments will be run by me first to ensure they are up to standard,” She explained.

“Will the other grades be doing this too?” Someone else asked.

Ms. Leigh nodded. “Yes, but they’ll all be on separate days and won’t be judged against yours or anyone else’s. Also, should’ve mentioned there will be ribbons, there will be ribbons. Oh, and the only classes doing this science fair thing are the combined science classes. The individual science classes will follow their traditional method of grading, but that doesn’t impact this year level because all of you are combined science anyway. Any more questions?”

She looked around and the silent classroom before clapping her hands together again. 

“Great. I can’t wait. And now for the part I know you’ve all been waiting for, lab partner assignments. In this classroom, I assign you a partner based on who I think you will work well with, which is based on the information I received from your freshman teachers. You may switch only if there’s a major problem, but not otherwise. I do this to get you all out of your shells, and hopefully, you’ll make a new friend you never would have before. After I give you your partners, one of you will move to the other and one the way will collect these,”

She leaned down and collected a folder full of papers from her bag. “Sheets. It’s a get to know you game for you and your new year-long partner. Talk to each other, fill them out and hand them back, that’s the day’s learning intention. Now, let’s begin.”

Rapunzel started to zone out as Ms. Leigh spoke, half-listening as she waiting for her name to be called and drawing patterns on in the corners of her page. She didn’t mind the whole ‘random partners’ thing. She knew no matter who she was partnered with she’d find a way to work with them, and not choosing lab partners meant she’d never be put in the awkward position in which no one wanted to work with her and she’d end up alone or with someone who resented her for beings paired with them. (She’d be lying is she said she hadn’t had that nightmare before)

When partners were chosen like this, they didn’t have a choice and therefore, couldn’t resent her. (Well they could, but it’d be stupid). After all, don’t hate the player, hate the game.

“Rapunzel and Flynn.” Rapunzel’s head snapped up, and she turned to where she saw him sit. Flynn Rider was on the people she did know. Everyone knew Flynn Rider.

He smiled at her and waved, miming that he was going to move to her. She smiled back shyly and waved back, turning back to her planner before her cheeks could go too red.

She knew one thing for sure, it was going to be one interesting year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the words of Flo from Pitch Perfect, "That was a lot of exposition".  
> Also, this was based on my experiences with science classes as an Australia, I don't know how it works in other countries.  
> Ms. Leigh is based on a mix of all three of the science teachers I've had in the past. One of them really did call us cretins a lot (Ironic, considering I'm in an academic extension program)


End file.
